Revision of BIOS from Sun, 05/04/2014 - 16:46
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What is a BIOS?
BIOS is an acronym for Basic Input/Output System.
"The fundamental purposes of the BIOS are to initialize and test the system hardware components, and to load a bootloader or an operating system from a mass memory device."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS
BIOSes are software in certain circumstances. The FSF says:
"Today the BIOS sits square on the edge of the line. It comes prewritten in our computers, and normally we never install another. So far, that is just barely enough to excuse treating it as hardware. But once in a while the manufacturer suggests installing another BIOS, which is available only as an executable. This, clearly, is installing a non-free program [...]"
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
What's the problem?
Free BIOSes exist, but ...
"installing a new BIOS in the machine is a substantial challenge. Most manufacturers don't publish the information on how to do this."
https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/free-bios.html
White-lists
Whoever controls a proprietary BIOS can implement a hardware white-list. A white list is a pre-approved list of hardware components.
A vendor might implement a white-list to ensure that customers must go to him for parts (eg. a replacement wifi card). The approved parts may all require proprietary software -- or maybe not. The vendor controls which hardware parts you may use with his BIOS.
BIOSes are difficult to replace. So vendors who implement BIOS white-lists can pressure their customers into using proprietary software. Assuming, for example, that the customer wants to use an internal wifi card, or full use of a video card.
Screen-monitoring technology
[does BIOS have anything to do with vPro etc?]
